


Cold Metal

by sera_wasnever



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: F/F, First Meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22117849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sera_wasnever/pseuds/sera_wasnever
Summary: Blue comes to work in the lobby for the first time, and catches someone's attention
Relationships: Blue/Red (Danger Days)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13
Collections: 2019 Danger Days Holiday Gift Exchange





	Cold Metal

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the danger days gift exchange for @ne0n-thunde1on tumblr, hope you enjoy it! xx

The streets of the slums this far out were cold. Blue knew that she was metal, that this shouldn’t get to her, but she shivered despite herself, phantom nerves sending panicked messages up her spine. The rest of Battery City was kept cool and temperate but here, it was only droids. Hardly worth wasting energy heating. She supposed she’d find out soon what other amenities she’d gotten too used to, working with human sex workers for so long.

Perhaps it was her reception here in her new home that was setting her on edge. Back at the club she’d been barely noticed, but here she’d noticed a few hushed whispers and sideways glances from fellow droids. Other droids, talking to each other. She’d have to get used to that. The club hadn’t been very social, especially to the only pornodroid there. Here, she thought there’d even been a red model noticing her coming. She wondered, briefly, what it would be like to be working at that price point – 20 times more expensive than her ‘budget savvy’ 50 carbons – but then quickly shut it down. It was probably just a whole other breed of bullshit.

Blue dragged her feet, still in her work heels, along the grimy pavement as she took in her surroundings. The mess was only slightly worse than the shadier human areas, but it was different. The urine and blood and occasional blaster marks you could find down alleyways if you were unlucky were replaced with oil and graffiti. So much graffiti. Sure, there had been a few spray-painted areas before, but they’d been erased quickly, and you’d often find the plastic and burning smell of Draculoid arrests soon after. Here, they’d either given up, or they didn’t care. There were words on every visible surface: painted, sprayed, scrawled in marker, but also scratched into the surface. These ones looked older; she looked down at her manicured nails, wondering if they could scratch so deep if she tried.

None of the markings seemed to make any sense, and she tried to keep her head down, but still they demanded her attention: “GO TOWARDS THE SUN”, “DESTROYA SLEEPS”, “SOULS RAIN IN DESERT SKIES” “SHE WILL-“

Blue felt a hand on her shoulder. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t even realised she was about to walk straight into someone. She slowly raised her head, and realised it was her. The red from before. Her head was tilted to the side, and a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, before she spoke. “Watch out there Blue, you’ve got to know this place pretty well before you’re going round with your head in the clouds.”

Blue was frozen, staring at the beautiful, smiling face in front of her.

“You look like you could use some help finding your way.” Red’s voice was soft and low, and yet so different from the voices people used with customers. “Perhaps I can help?”

“I’m okay. I need - thank you- I need to get to 14-PG5, do you know where that is?”

Red thought a second before replying, removing her hand from her shoulder. “Yes, I’ve been there a few times. The girls at 14-5 are alright; a couple of yellows and an orange, I think. There aren’t so many of us in the Lobby, you ought to get to know the people you’re staying with.” Red paused for a second in thought, then spoke. “Walk back with me.”

“Um, okay,” but Red had already turned and was walking down another alleyway, and Blue hurriedly followed, having just spotted the patrol walking up the main street. “Are you- do you live in 14?”

“No, I’m alone in 13,” Red slowed down a second to look at Blue with that smile again, “but I wouldn’t mind getting to know you.”

Blue felt a phantom blush now. “Me?”

“I mean, most droids are already in the Lobby, and there are only a few pornodroids here.”

“Oh, right, of course.”

Blue followed Red into a building identical to all the others and up two flights of stairs, until they were outside a door.

Red was half talking to herself when she asked, “I wonder, Blue, why are you here?”

Blue was wondering herself why she’d just followed someone up to her apartment before even finding her own, but before she could answer that she’d really just had to go somewhere when the club decided cheap droids weren’t what the target customers were after and the patrols here weren’t so picky and would make a decent customer base, Red had opened the door and seated herself with remarkable poise on a pile of old blankets.

“Sit down, take a blanket; I saw you shivering.”

Feeling slightly silly, Blue took an old purple piece of fleece and wrapped it around herself, carefully perching next to Red. It did make her feel warmer somehow.

They talked and talked. Red seemed fascinated with her life, with what it was like working in a human club. She’d always been the only red in the lobby, and not really been anywhere else.

“Business here isn’t _bad_ , I suppose – clients always pay up – but c’mon, how many exterminators are going to have the money to hire me in the first place? Now you,” Red shuffled closer, “you’re going to be fine.”

“Really. You’re the only non-blue model I’ve seen around so far.”

“In what? Half an hour of walking, with your head in the bible?” Blue moved to ask what she meant but Red had turned away, watching their reflections in the window behind them, “And anyway, there’s something special about you.”

Blue raised an eyebrow, looking at the droid sat in front of her, curled up elegantly on perfectly stacked blankets, gazing out the window still with a seriousness she couldn’t quite get.

“About me? What’s so special about me?”

Red was half whispering as she kept looking outside. “I don’t know, I just have this feeling…” She turned and shook her hair out of her eyes, sitting up straighter and smiling at Blue, “I mean, you lived with humans, I only see them at work.”

Blue half laughed, “Not that they spoke to me outside of work.”

“Still! You have a completely different experience to everyone here. The only customers here are patrols.” Blue almost missed the look of disgust that flitted quickly across her face.

“I don’t know about that,” Blue leaned in with a conspiratorial smile, “the _things_ they say, they don’t vary much. I’ve had patrollers and citizens both insist on-“ She was interrupted by a high pitched buzzing that twisted her face into a grimace, and even made Red wince before sighing.

“Agh, is that the time? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up past curfew.”

Blue tried to shake the ringing from her systems, before panic started to take hold.

“Curfew? I thought there wasn’t one for droids here!?”

“It’s a temporary measure, there was some kind of a religious protest the other day and-“ Red caught sight of her shaking hand and took it in her own, “Hey, calm down, it’s going to be okay! You can stay here. They never check in the buildings themselves.”

Blue’s tried to match Red’s calm but her voice was still wavery when she spoke, “But I need to get out; I need to work, I need to find my flat.”

“I got a big payout the other day, you can stay with me, I don’t mind.” Red shuffled down so she could meet Blue’s downcast eyes and with her own bright ones, “I’d quite like it, in fact.”

So did Blue, as it turned out. She ended up spending more and more nights in Red’s apartment. Orange gossiped incessantly with the others in 14 about it, but Blue didn’t really care. She had practice ignoring that talk, and besides - this apartment didn’t feel quite so cold as the others.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Cold Metal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22825312) by [spellingbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingbee/pseuds/spellingbee)




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